“But a man can git in rough places right on this slope, can’t he?” some one inquired.
“In course,” remarked another hunter, “Wid, you cum powerful nigh peeterin’ out nigh hyar, wunct, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Wid, now devoting his attention partly to a boiling pot of coffee, “Thet day war a tough un. Hit war a hot summer day. We,—thet is, Bill Massey who’s awmost blind now, Bill Allen who gin up huntin’ long ye’rs ago, my brother El, me, an’ sev’ral others,—we started a bar on the Jackson county line nigh Scotts creek in the mornin’. We driv till arter-noon, an’ in the chase I got below hyar. I heered the dogs up on Ole Bald, an’ abearin’ down the ridge-top I was on. Powerful soon I seed the bar comin’ on a dog-trot under the trees. He war a master brute!”
“How big, Wid?”
“Four-hunderd an’ fifty pound, net. Thinks me to myself, ‘Gun fust, knife next’; fer, you see, I war clean played out with the heat and long run, an’ I war in favor o’ bringin’ the thing to a close; so I brought my ole flint-lock to my shoul’er. This is the very gun I hed then,” and he tapped the battered stock of a six-foot, black-barreled, flint-lock rifle.
“I wouldn’t hev your cap arrangements. This kind never misses fire; an’ rain never teches hit, fer this ’ere kiver, ter put over the pan, keeps hit as dry as a tarripin hull.”
“Go on with the story,” exclaimed an interested auditor.
“Jist tend ter brilin’ your bacon, Jonas, an’ let me travel ter suit my own legs. I fetched my gun to my shoul’er an’ fired. The brute never stopped, but I knowed I’d hit him, for I hed a dead sight on his head; an’, like blockade whisky, a ball outer thet black bore allus goes to the spot. He’s a thick-skulled varmint, I thought. I dropped my gun, an’ pulled my knife. On he cum. He didn’t pay no more tenshun to me then ef I’d bin a rock. I drew back a step, an’ as he brashed by me, I bent over him, grabbin’ the ha’r o’ his neck with one hand, an’ staubed him deep in the side with the knife in the other. Thet’s all I knowed for hours.”
“Did you faint?” some one asked.
“Faint?” sneered Wid, sticking out his square chin and showing his teeth. “You ass! You don’t reckon I faint, do you? Women faint. I fell dead! You see all the blood in me jumped over my heart into my head, an’ ov course hit finished me fer a time.”